That is all.
Category: Life in the Church
Mormon Life – Family – Personal Reflections
The Form of Mormon Temple Ceremonies
For a concrete idea of what Mormon temple services are like, comparing them with a Catholic Mass actually goes pretty far.
Joseph Smith, Again for the First Time
Sometimes I have suffered from convert envy.
Watching conference
Stake conference in the mission field. Still the mission field, for although we are a stake, there is no stake center, only a chapel in some of the main cities, and rented rowhouses elsewhere. The stake covers some 10,000 square miles. Therefore we gather in this huge, sparsely lit movie theatre—theatre number 14 in a massive cinema complex close to the highway.
Women Who Know
… grow tomatoes in their home garden, and lots of them. Men who know grow them, too.
Little street vendor
She is a little street vendor who put up shop next to the entrance of the church with the long name.
Generations
The tireless Kevin Barney is hosting a discussion of LDS apologetics for teenagers over at BCC, trying to get a handle on the tone, approach, and content of a fireside-type presentation to LDS youth on that topic. Reflecting on this, it occurred to me that one of the challenges is how the topics that get thrown at Mormons (and that therefore get discussed by LDS apologists) change from generation to generation and how this might be a problem.
LDS Historical Sites
A couple of months ago I heard a presentation on the general topic of historical sites that the Church owns and manages. I came with a pocketful of snarky questions but left with some appreciation for how tough the task is and (on the whole) how well the sites are set up and managed. I’ll give a couple of paragraphs summarizing the talk, then a couple of paragraphs commenting on historical sites I have visited.
How Much Should We Advantage Our Kids Over Others?
When asked why they aren’t more generous with their time or money, many people answer that if they gave more, it would be at the expense of their own children. Sure, the argument goes, it would be great if I could pay an extra $100 to provide immunizations for kids in Africa, but my first duty is to my family, and giving that $100 for immunizations would prevent me from taking my kids to the water park.
Why Haven’t You Adopted an Orphan Child?
For years I’ve been torn by the knowledge that there are thousands of orphaned or abandoned children desperate to be welcomed into a family like mine and our reasons for “passing by on the other side” when we see the “least of these.”
Quality
Warning: To write this post, I’ve had to get personal. I apologize in advance for that, but some points I make require grounding in my observations about personal experiences, many of which are highly charged. The stories and observations I report here in no way represent everything I think about these matters. More importantly, they don’t represent everything I will think; I’m not through turning over these events and ideas to see what else is there. If you’ve come to this post already feeling overwhelmed or bothered about something, you might want to skip reading this, because it might make matters worse for you. After you read this post, it will self-destruct in sixty seconds. (I wish, but then again, some records must stand.) Did I mention this post runs long? Okay then, here we go. In 1992 I gave birth to a daughter, Mattea. An in utero infection of a predatory organism called cytomegalovirus (CMV) destroyed nearly half her brain, including most of her brain stem. Describing what her life’s been like is impossible for a blog post. Furthermore, I’ve never undertaken the epic journey toward consciousness that she has, though I accompanied her every step of her way. Some things she felt and did I’ll never know how she managed.
BYU Summer Seminar
The annual summer symposium, this year “Joseph Smith and His Times,” will be held on Thursday, August 9, 2007. The symposium will feature papers by twelve summer seminar fellows on the theme “Mormon Thinkers, 1890-1930,” covering topics ranging from the influence of Herbert Spencer on Mormon thought to Mormonism and Modernity.
Who Owns That Church?
There’s always an owner, of course — there are few concepts more disfavored in the law than real property without an owner. But when it comes to chapels and church buildings, the question of just who owns them can get messy. The latest example: a congregation in Orange County that is trying to leave the Episcopal fold and take its building with it. The congregation just lost the latest round in a fight with the national Episcopal Church and its Los Angeles Diocese over who owns the congregation’s building. [Hat tip: the Religion Clause; see also the Orange County Register story or, for all the legal details, the full appellate court decision.] This story raises a couple of interesting questions for Mormon readers.
What if . . . ?
What if I didn’t believe in God? Would I still be a Mormon?
Memorial Quiz
Kristine’s pop quiz prompts me to ask a similar quiz I’ve had on my mind. Think of this as Memorial Day come early. Feel free to cheat if you have to: Name your great grandparents. Name 5 of your great-great grandparents. Name 3 of your great-great-great grandparents.
The ordinary
However well we do in school or our jobs or in our church callings or in any endeavor, most of our lives are and will be ordinary.
Appropriate Requests
Yesterday we met our new home teachers. After they shared their message, and before they asked to leave us with a prayer, they asked the common question, “Is there anything you need that we can help you with?” We answered “No.” We then said a prayer together and they left. When they asked that question my mind began to list all the things that we need or want- a grown up bed for our kid, someone to watch our kid this Thursday while I’m at the dentist, to figure out what is going on with my husband’s ear, help figuring out just exactly what sorts of things I should buy for food storage, advice on hiring a landscaper or doing the backyard ourselves, advice on refinancing our home, etc. I wonder what would have transpired if I had shared any of those things with our home teachers. Obviously it would have been a bit overwhelming for a first visit, but I’m sure they’ll ask the question again the next time they come.
From Russia With Love- Updated
There is a certain sort of person that is just so self-absorbed and generally unaware that it just doesn’t feel wrong to gossip about them, they’d just enjoy the extra attention. In my childhood ward it was Brother L.- in that ward people traded gossip about Brother L. like baseball cards. In fact it feels so normal to gossip about him that I’m having a tough time not filling this post with endless stories about stupid things he’s done. He was, in short, a tough person to get along with, and take seriously (I think it was his Dracula hairdo, but that’s neither here nor there). I eventually came to think of him as an egotistical-yet-harmless old bachelor. A man that, despite his annoying ways, had probably gone through his fair share of disadvantage and heartache. He was still a child of God who deserved all the respect, love and compassion the ward could muster. This past Christmas I heard something that shook my resolve to not think poorly of him to its core: he was taking a trip to Russia for just about the only thing an egotistical lonely old man would go to Russia for, a mail-order bride.
Quadrupling Fast Offerings
About a year or so ago our stake made a move to improve fast offering receipts. The bishop supported this and urged everyone to donate to fast offerings and, in addition to the general admonition, he reinstituted Aaronic priesthood collection of fast offerings after church.
We Did It
We’ve finally read the entire Book of Mormon as a family, all of us (those that can read, anyway) taking turns verse by verse. It only took us four and a half years, and we’re ready to do it again.
Natural Succession or the Prophetic Death Card?
Does God control who is Church President by ending life (using the “death card”)? Or does he control who is President by controlling the order in which Apostles are called? Of course, both can be true (or neither depending on your theological persuasion), but let’s examine these questions systematically.
How Wrong is it to Compare Yourself with Others?
A growing body of research (mine own included) in various social sciences finds that people report higher happiness levels when they do better than the people around them.
Could the Restoration have Happened Elsewhere and Elsewhen?
The common answer heard today in the Church is no. A variety of reasons are usually given:
O’Dea’s The Mormons Part II: The Edited Volume Retrospective
The Mormon Social Science Association, under the direction of editors John Hoffman, Cardell Jacobsen, and Tim Heaton of BYU’s Department of Sociology, is currently putting together a volume of essays that retrospectively assess O’Dea’s 1957 classic The Mormons.
Making Money off the Mormons: Sacrament Butt-pads
When I was a senior in college, I worked at Seagull Book and Tape, an LDS book and trinket store across the street from the LA Temple. (The pay was lousy, but working with books was fun. So it turned out to be a decent job.) I was amazed by all the stuff that Mormons buy just because it has some sort of Mormon reference or connection.
Race, class, and retention
As a missionary, I was constantly admonished to ensure that our potential converts were spiritually, and not just socially converted.
Primary Lesson Supplements 20-24
I’ve been distributing weekly lesson supplements to our senior Primary teachers; I figured I might as well post them here. “Those might be of some use,” as my four-year-old would say. You can also use these ideas for FHE, Sharing Time, etc.
Growing Old
I was going to title this “growing older,” but I decided to be honest. I’ll be fifty-nine this year and, though I’m not yet decrepit, by most people’s measures I’ll officially be old next year.
Tempted to Violate the Word of Wisdom
When we think of temptations related to the Word of Wisdom, we usually think of, you know, being tempted to violate the WoW. But I can think of a few different WoW-related temptations.
“Well, yes, actually, there is.”
That’s not the answer you expect when you toss out the standard home/visiting teaching line asking if there is anything you can do to help your teachee.